


The Elder

by Girlysword



Series: I have an anthropological fascination for twilight [3]
Category: Twilight Series - Stephenie Meyer
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-21
Updated: 2021-01-21
Packaged: 2021-03-17 02:35:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 926
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28717371
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Girlysword/pseuds/Girlysword
Summary: Sam Uley IV didn't know what was happening to him...the Elder was coming to the bonfire tonight to tell the whole story.
Relationships: Jacob Black/Renesmee Cullen
Series: I have an anthropological fascination for twilight [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2101764
Kudos: 2





	The Elder

Sam Uley IV didn’t know what was happening to him, it was like his body was trying to tear itself apart. He wanted to scream, but all he could hear was the howling of a wolf.  
It was like a dam broke in his head and he was being flooded with information. He closed his eyes, but it was as if he could still see the world around him the scent of everything was so strong. He could hear everything too, sounds he had never heard before. A little way off there was a rabbit. He could smell the rabbit, he could hear the rabbit, he knew if he opened his eyes he could see the rabbit no matter how fast it might move. How did rabbits ever have a chance?  
Sam smelled it first, mostly it smelled like bonfires, but there was just the smallest hint of a sweet smell that set off a signal of danger in his brain. Then he heard it, boots slowly making their way toward him, then a voice, “It’s okay Sammy.”  
Sam knew that voice, he opened his eyes and saw yes, Ephraim Black, the guy he was pretty sure was the leader of a gang or something, was coming toward him, arms out the way they are when someone is trying to calm down a dangerous animal. Sam looked down at himself and realized, oh, that was exactly what Ephraim was doing.  
So, Sam was a werewolf (well not actually a werewolf) and his job was to kill vampires (except some of them were okay?). Ephraim said that the Elder was coming to the bonfire tonight to tell the whole story. The Elder was the oldest person on the reservation, continuing to shapeshift long after those generations younger than him had retired. He let each generation of shifters run their own packs, only giving advice if need be, but he has taken leadership over the pack during emergencies in the past. Ephraim said that the Elder was his ancestor.  
Sam looked around the bonfire for the Elder, but he knew all the old people there and Ephraim said that Sam had probably never met the Elder before. Apparently, he lived in a remote cabin with his mate and rarely interacted with people who didn’t already know who he was. As he looked, Sam caught sight a person he definitely never met before. Ephraim was talking to a girl about his age, with pale skin and bronze curls. She reminded him of a bedtime story his mother used to tell him, of a changeling who had been adopted by the tribe and sometimes gave good children presents. The changeling had apparently made his windup Bruce Lee toy. When the changeling girl sat down, everyone began to quiet and turned to face her and the guy she sat down next to.  
This guy was the Elder? He looked like a teenager! Maybe early twenties at the oldest. When the guy started telling the story pf Taha Aki, which Sam had heard a thousand times before, Sam understood. Shapeshifters didn’t age as long as they kept changing. Sam thought he must have been in shock, because it wasn’t until now that he really thought about all he had been told that day. It was all real, wolf warriors and cold ones, soul mates and treaties. Sam felt as if he were floating away and he couldn’t hear the stories anymore, thankful that he already knew them by heart.  
“And now for the story of Bella Swan,” said the Elder, “the girl who helped the Quileute warriors reach their full potential as not only protectors of their own people, but all peoples.”  
This was new, well a new version of a story Sam had heard. It wasn’t told as often as the stories of Taha Ahki, the Third Wife, and the treaty of Ephraim Black, but it was sometimes brought into the rotation depending on who was doing the storytelling. Sometimes the story of the girl who fell in love with and eventually became a cold one was a cautionary tale about how you can’t stop a person from making their won decisions. Sometimes the story of the girl who broke a wolf’s heart was bittersweet tale about how things happen in life the way they are supposed to, no matter how painful it might feel while you are in the midst of it. Sam had never heard anything about “potential” before. The way the Elder talked about the main wolf in the story, Jacob Black, was different too. Jacob Black was described the way one of Sam’s Christian friends once described St. Peter, despite apparently being destined to lead, the story was just a long list of his screw-ups. The story also included more detail than Sam had heard before. Imprinting, usually rare, happened to almost every wolf in that generation’s pack. “Bella Swan would bring the tribe into the larger world, and it seems as if fate wanted us prepared.”  
And all the stories told after that attested to that, the tribe would take on not just individual vampires, but an organization of vampires, like the vampire mafia or something. They would fight and befriend real werewolves. They would work with shapeshifters of other tribes. Real Avengers-type stuff. And guiding the packs through it all was the Elder, Jacob Black, and his half-vampire mate, Renesmee Cullen. Everyone they knew in the tribe, even their own descendants, have and would die, but they had a duty. And now, so did Sam.


End file.
